NAME

etex, einitex, evirtex - extended TeX

SYNOPSIS

etex [options] [&format ] [ file | \commands ]

DESCRIPTION

Run the e-TeX typesetter on file, usually creating file.dvi. If the
file argument has no extension, ".tex" will be appended to it. Instead
of a filename, a set of e-TeX commands can be given, the first of which
must start with a backslash. With a &format argument e-TeX uses a
different set of precompiled commands, contained in format.fmt; it is
usually better to use the -fmtformat option instead.
e-TeX is the first concrete result of an international research &
development project, the NTS Project, which was established under the
aegis of DANTE e.V. during 1992. The aims of the project are to
perpetuate and develop the spirit and philosophy of TeX, whilst
respecting Knuth's wish that TeX should remain frozen.
e-TeX can be used in two different modes: in compatibilitymode it is
supposed to be completely interchangable with standard TeX. In
extendedmode several new primitives are added that facilitate (among
other things) bidirectional typesetting.
An extended mode format is generated by prefixing the name of the
source file for the format with an asterisk (*). Such formats are
often prefixed with an `e', hence etex as the extended version of tex
and elatex as the extended version of latex. However, eplain is an
exception to this rule.
The einitex and evirtex commands are e-TeX's analogues to the initex
and virtex commands. In this installation, they are symbolic links to
the etex executable. These symbolic links may not exist at all.
e-TeX's handling of its command-line arguments is similar to that of
the other TeX programs in the web2c implementation.

OPTIONS

This version of e-TeX understands the following command line options.
-fmtformat
Use format as the name of the format to be used, instead of the
name by which e-TeX was called or a %& line.
-enc Enable the encTeX extensions. This option is only effective in
combination with -ini. For documentation of the encTeX
extensions see http://www.olsak.net/enctex.html.
-etex Enable the e-TeX extensions. This option is only effective in
combination with -ini.
-file-line-error
Print error messages in the form file:line:error which is
similar to the way many compilers format them.
-no-file-line-error
Disable printing error messages in the file:line:error style.
-file-line-error-style
This is the old name of the -file-line-error option.
-halt-on-error
Exit with an error code when an error is encountered during
processing.
-help Print help message and exit.
-ini Start in INI mode, which is used to dump formats. The INI mode
can be used for typesetting, but no format is preloaded, and
basic initializations like setting catcodes may be required.
-interactionmode
Sets the interaction mode. The mode can be either batchmode,
nonstopmode, scrollmode, and errorstopmode. The meaning of
these modes is the same as that of the corresponding \commands.
-ipc Send DVI output to a socket as well as the usual output file.
Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
-ipc-start
As -ipc, and starts the server at the other end as well.
Whether this option is available is the choice of the installer.
-jobnamename
Use name for the job name, instead of deriving it from the name
of the input file.
-kpathsea-debugbitmask
Sets path searching debugging flags according to the bitmask.
See the Kpathsea manual for details.
-mktexfmt
Enable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
-mltex Enable MLTeX extensions. Only effective in combination with
-ini.
-no-mktexfmt
Disable mktexfmt, where fmt must be either tex or tfm.
-output-commentstring
Use string for the DVI file comment instead of the date.
-output-directorydirectorydirectory instead of the current directory. Look up input files
in directory first, the along the normal search path.
-parse-first-line
If the first line of the main input file begins with %& parse it
to look for a dump name or a -translate-file option.
-no-parse-first-line
Disable parsing of the first line of the main input file.
-prognamename
Pretend to be program name. This affects both the format used
and the search paths.
-recorder
Enable the filename recorder. This leaves a trace of the files
opened for input and output in a file with extension .fls.
-shell-escape
Enable the \write18{command} construct. The command can be any
shell command. This construct is normally disallowed for
security reasons.
-no-shell-escape
Disable the \write18{command} construct, even if it is enabled
in the texmf.cnf file.
-src-specials
Insert source specials into the DVI file.
-src-specialswhere
Insert source specials in certain placed of the DVI file. where
is a comma-separated value list: cr, display, hbox, math, par,
parent, or vbox.
-translate-filetcxname
Use the tcxname translation table to set the mapping of input
characters and re-mapping of output characters.
-default-translate-filetcxname
Like -translate-file except that a %& line can overrule this
setting.
-version
Print version information and exit.

ENVIRONMENT

See the Kpathsearch library documentation (the `Path specifications'
node) for precise details of how the environment variables are used.
The kpsewhich utility can be used to query the values of the variables.
One caveat: In most e-TeX formats, you cannot use ~ in a filename you
give directly to e-TeX, because ~ is an active character, and hence is
expanded, not taken as part of the filename. Other programs, such as
Metafont, do not have this problem.
TEXMFOUTPUT
Normally, e-TeX puts its output files in the current directory.
If any output file cannot be opened there, it tries to open it
in the directory specified in the environment variable
TEXMFOUTPUT. There is no default value for that variable. For
example, if you say etexpaper and the current directory is not
writable, if TEXMFOUTPUT has the value /tmp, e-TeX attempts to
create /tmp/paper.log (and /tmp/paper.dvi, if any output is
produced.)
TEXINPUTS
Search path for \input and \openin files. This should probably
start with ``.'', so that user files are found before system
files. An empty path component will be replaced with the paths
defined in the texmf.cnf file. For example, set TEXINPUTS to
".:/home/usr/tex:" to prepend the current direcory and
``/home/user/tex'' to the standard search path.
TEXFORMATS
Search path for format files.
TEXPOOL
search path for etex internal strings.
TEXEDIT
Command template for switching to editor. The default, usually
vi, is set when e-TeX is compiled.
TFMFONTS
Search path for font metric (.tfm) files.

NOTES

Starting with version 1.40, pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions,
so in this installation eTeX is just a symbolic link to pdfTeX. See
pdftex(1). This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The
complete documentation for this version of e-TeX can be found in the
info manual Web2C:ATeXimplementation.

BUGS

This version of e-TeX implements a number of optional extensions. In
fact, many of these extensions conflict to a greater or lesser extent
with the definition of e-TeX. When such extensions are enabled, the
banner printed when e-TeX starts is changed to print e-TeXk instead of
e-TeX.
This version of e-TeX fails to trap arithmetic overflow when dimensions
are added or subtracted. Cases where this occurs are rare, but when it
does the generated DVI file will be invalid.

SEEALSO

AUTHORS

e-TeX was developed by Peter Breitenlohner (and the NTS team).
TeX was designed by Donald E. Knuth, who implemented it using his
system for Pascal programs. It was ported to Unix at Stanford by
Howard Trickey, and at Cornell by Pavel Curtis. The version now
offered with the Unix TeX distribution is that generated by the to C
system (web2c), originally written by Tomas Rokicki and Tim Morgan.
The encTeX extensions were written by Petr Olsak.